Giulio Regeni murder: Rome court convicts 3 Egyptians

A Rome court has convicted three Egyptian security officers of murdering Italian student Giulio Regeni, sentencing each of them in absentia to 10 years in prison.

The verdict on September 28 came nearly a decade after Regeni, a 28-year-old University of Cambridge PhD candidate, was abducted in Cairo in January 2016 while researching Egyptian trade unions. His mutilated body was found nine days later on the outskirts of the Egyptian capital.

The case has strained relations between Italy and Egypt. A first Italian trial in 2021 was thrown out because prosecutors had been unable to inform the suspects of the proceedings. Italy's Constitutional Court ruled in September 2023 that the trial could proceed against four defendants.

The court convicted Colonels Athar Kamel and Uhsam Helmi, and Major Magdi Ibrahim Abdelal Sharif. General Tariq Sabir was acquitted.

Defence lawyers had argued unsuccessfully that the case should be dismissed, saying the charges targeted the group without attributing specific acts to each person.

Italian investigators believe Regeni was abducted and killed after being mistaken for a foreign spy. An Italian parliamentary commission later blamed Egypt's security agency for his death and accused Egypt's judiciary of obstructing the case by failing to disclose the defendants' whereabouts.

Egypt's public prosecutor cleared all four suspects of responsibility in December 2020 and dropped the case. Extradition remains unlikely, but the convictions could renew diplomatic tensions between Rome and Cairo.